Mechanical strength of wheat grain varieties influenced by moisture content and loading rate

Mechanical shear resistance of wheat grain is a significant concern for the designers and researchers related to the design of threshing,handling and processing machinery of the field crops.The grain mechanical properties directly affect the machine geometry and its operational parameters.The present study was carried out to determine the shear resistance of five wheat varieties(Locally names;TD-02,Sindhu-1105,Benazir,China and SKD-118)influenced by moisture content(16.7%,18.7%and 19.5%)and loading rate(3 mm/s,6 mm/s and 9 mm/s).However,some physio-dimensional properties(length,width,thickness,slenderness ratio,surface area and sphericity)were obtained at different moisture contents.The results showed that the shear resistance reduced by increasing the moisture content and loading rate.The average shear resistance decreased from 10.45 N to 3.74 N for 3-9 mm/s loading rate at moisture content of 16.7%to 19.5%.Thus,the maximum correlation(r=0.905)of shear resistance obtained at 16.7%,whereas minimum correlation(r=0.692)obtained at 19.5%.The shear resistance of wheat grain was highly significant(p<0.05)at 9 mm/s for 19.5%.Shear resistance decreased with an increase in the moisture content in the grain whereas deformation is increasing with the increase of moisture content.However,the maximum bulk density of wheat grain obtained at 19.5%for SKD-118,while the minimum obtained at 16.7%for TD-02.It is recommended that the design and modification of wheat grain processing equipment should be executed on the physio-mechanical properties of grain varieties.

Modeling and simulation of landfill gas production from pretreated MSW landfill simulator

The cumulative landfill gas （LFG） production and its rate were simulated for pretreated municipal solid waste （MSW） landfill using four models namely first order exponential model, modified Gompertz model, single component combined growth and decay model and Gaussian function. Considering the behavior of the pretreated MSW landfill, a new multi component model was based on biochemical processes that occurring in landfilled pretreated MSW. The model was developed on the basis of single component combined growth and decay model using an anaerobic landfill simulator reactor which treats the pretreated MSW. It includes three components of the degradation i.e. quickly degradable, moderately degradable and slowly degradable. Moreover, the devel- oped model was statistically analyzed for its goodness of fit. The results show that the multi components LFG production model is more suitable in comparison to the simulated models and can efficiently be used as a modeling tool for pretreated MSW landfills. The proposed model is likely to give assistance in sizing of LFG collection system, generates speedy results at lower cost, improves cost-benefit analysis and decreases LFG project risk. It also indicates the stabilization of the landfill and helps the managers in the reuse of the landfill space. The proposed model is limited to aerobically pretreated MSW landfill and also requires the values of delay times in LFG productions from moderately and slowly degradable fractions ofpretreated MSW.